


Who Ever Said Teamwork Was Easy

by icarusforgotten



Category: Free!, Haikyuu!!
Genre: F/M, Gen, OC, birthday fic, happy birthday Jas!!, megadere
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-09-14
Updated: 2015-09-14
Packaged: 2018-04-20 18:10:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,516
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4797287
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/icarusforgotten/pseuds/icarusforgotten
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Iwatobi's volleyball team faces off with Karasuo, Hinata finds the courage to engage the teams of both schools in a journey of teamwork, friendship, and overcoming boundaries.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Who Ever Said Teamwork Was Easy

**Author's Note:**

> a birthday gift for my wonderful darling, [megadere](mega.dere.me)!

Volleyball is a sport of wonder. It brings out the best in competitive players, and redeems the worth of players too nervous to so much as walk a straight line. Some would argue that such players have no place on the court. But that’s the beauty of volleyball. It doesn’t discriminate. As long as one has love for the sport and never gives up, volleyball will draw out the warrior in everyone.

And yet, only one team can be victorious.

Hinata gazed around at the screaming fans. Their energy reverberated through him, filling him with such raw power it left him speechless. He looked to his other teammates. He could tell they all felt it too.

Asahi stood tall, determined. If not for the fact that Hinata knew him, he would see a young man with confidence. With unbreakable will. But the truth was, Karasuno’s ace was the most nervous of them all. Anxiety did funny things. It left one thinking of their talents as brimming with inadequacy and incompetence. Hinata was no stranger to frustration and self-doubt, but he saw the way those dark thoughts plagued Asahi, and all he could do was watch.

In a way, it was like watching a train wreck. Something he couldn’t just look away from, no matter how hard he tried.

But, it’s because of Asahi’s anxiety that he’s the strongest player of them all. Because he struggled more than anyone. Because his struggles were with himself. And he faced that fear head-on, almost as often as he breathed.

Hinata admired that kind of strength.

And he vowed to keep playing because of it.

His team made him stronger. Made him try harder.

Every day he saw Kageyama working hard. Everyone was working hard, true, but there was something reassuring about the way Kageyama trained. He was relentless. He never settled for just ‘good enough’; and, even when his sets were near perfect, he was still hard on himself to find more ways to improve. He was more like Oikawa than he realised, but Hinata knew that was a sore spot for Kageyama, so he willingly dropped it.

Tanaka, Noya, Tsukishima … all of his team – they all pushed themselves beyond their limits. They all had their own ways of doing, and of coping. But they all somehow managed to come through.

Every one of them had their faults, but when they played together, when they put the effort to work past their dramas and insecurities, to really reach out to one another and do their best, incredible things happened. They moved to the next level, and they won. And not just in terms of games and tournaments.

It left Hinata with a much stronger appreciation for volleyball than ever before.

He looked around at his team – at his  _friends_  – all in position on the court, ready for the starting whistle. He could feel their focus, and it was this synchronicity that gave him confidence. Hinata eased into his stance, arms ready for the ball, and when that whistle blew, he moved instinctively.

 

 

The game was over much too quickly. In a way, the outcome, as unfortunate as it was, had been decided from the very beginning.

Hinata was far too engrossed in his own thoughts before the game to notice the way the other team interacted with each other. It was disheartening, really.

The lack of trust and dynamic in their opposing team resulted in a loss of 25 – 2, and that was from their best set. The only reason they gained any points was because Hinata still needed vast improvements with his serves. Kageyama wasted no time in pointing that one out, to Hinata’s dismay.

After their loss, however, Hinata could see the way they bickered, how they threw blame around and otherwise ignored each other. There was no teamwork. There was no friendship. The captain distanced himself from the rest of his team. Unlike Sawamura, who brought everyone together and encouraged strength and reliability, this other team’s captain didn’t bother to even look at the other players of his team. And because of that, the team didn’t get along. Didn’t  _want_  to get along. There was coldness and distrust and it hurt Hinata to watch players so promising destroy themselves with such bitterness.

It was a small, recreational tournament held annually in Tokyo. No legitimate championships at stake. But it wasn’t an excuse for how this team behaved.

“Hey!” Hinata called.

The captain of the team glanced over, but otherwise ignored him.

Hinata fumed. He grabbed his bag, making his way over, but before he could so much as take two steps, he was yanked by the back of his shirt. Kageyama looked down at him, scowling. “What do you think you’re doing?”

“I just want to talk to them,” he said.                              

“Why bother. They aren’t worth our time.”

No, he thought. They were worth even more, because there had to be something fundamentally wrong for a team to work so abysmally together, and Hinata was determined to show them the light of the sport.

Kageyama knew this too. But being Kageyama, he was stubbornly set in his prideful ways. Despite this, he let go of Hinata’s shirt, though reluctantly, and stepped away. “Just don’t do anything stupid.”

Hinata dashed over to the other end of the gym. “Hey!” he called. The captain paused, briefly glanced his way, and then continued walking out with the rest of his team. Hinata sprinted ahead, blocking his way. Dark eyes glared down at him with strict intensity, and Hinata gulped. He looked back to his own team. Sawamura cocked his head, shooting Hinata a curious look. Kageyama scowled, appearing more tense than usual.

Hinata cleared his head, focusing back on the opposing team’s captain. He realised he didn’t even know what school they were from. It wasn’t a formal competition, so they were introduced with team numbers, based on their order of registration, and nothing else.

“What is it, kid?” The guy’s voice was scarier than his eyes.

“Uh … .”

“Come on, I haven’t got all day.” The way he said it, though, gave the impression that he did.

“M-my name’s Hinata!” He bowed so quickly and deeply the blood rushed straight to his head. “Thank you for the game!”

“That’s great, kid.” The captain walked around Hinata, continuing on his way.

“W-wait!” Hinata stammered. He rushed to block the captain again, who scowled at him in annoyance. Hinata took a deep breath, pacing himself. “W-what’s your n-name?”

The captain paused for a moment, as if considering. “Heki Shou,” he grunted.

“I’m happy to meet you, Heki-san!” Hinata bowed low again.

Heki didn’t respond. He just stood there, and with every second that passed, Hinata grew more and more nervous. He shut his eyes, waiting for an insult, or at the very least a dismissal.

“Hinata, was it?”

Hinata shot up, grinning.

“Stop wasting my time.”

“No wait – Heki-san!” He tugged on the captain’s jersey. “What school are you from?”

Heki paused again. He didn’t seem unsure of giving an answer. Hinata didn’t quite know how to place it. He just seemed … stubborn. Like there was a barrier around him and he had no particular interest in making an effort to remove it.

“Heki-san?” Sawamura was right behind them. Hinata nearly jumped out of his shorts, he was not expecting his own captain to join them. “I believe your opponent asked you what school you and your team were from.” Sawamura was doing that thing again, making his face really scary. It sent shivers up Hinata’s spine.

“Iwatobi,” Heki eventually spit out. He jerked his sleeve out of Hinata’s hold and walked on off. His team hadn’t even waited for their captain.

“Iwatobi,” Sawamura mused. “I know that school.”

“Really? Do you know someone who goes there?”

“You could say something like that. An old friend of mine goes there now. We never see each other anymore, since his family moved away. We used to keep in touch quite often,” said Sawamura fondly, “but now we just write the occasional e-mail on holidays, to catch up and stuff.”

“Eh? Where is Iwatobi?”

Sawamura turned to him with a sad smile. “Tottori Prefecture.”

“But that’s way up in the North!”

“Yeah, it’s pretty far,” Sawamura said with a laugh. He turned to walk back to the rest of the team, Hinata trailing quickly behind him.

“So why did your friend move away?”

“Oh, you know how it is. His parents needed to move for work. Something about having more success for their business at the coastline.”

Hinata could see by the way Sawamura’s eyes glazed up a bit that he needed to change the subject. “So, what kind of school is Iwatobi? I mean, what sports are they big for?”

“Well,” Sawamura pondered. “I wouldn’t necessarily say this is a big sport of theirs, but I do know of their swimming team.”

“Huh? Swimming?”

“Yeah, they have a group of guys who pride themselves on their teamwork.”

Teamwork, huh?

Hinata grinned. He just came up with one heck of a crazy idea.


End file.
